How Far We've Come
by givemesomewords
Summary: It's about a week into their journey aboard the Jolly Roger, and Emma is starting to grapple with her and Regina's changing relationship. Based on a tumblr prompt. Pre-SQ.


_Note:_ _This is my first work of fanfiction in several years, so let's consider it a warm-up. Let's hope my muse kicks in soon so I can start cranking out more stories. Thanks to spookyfbi on tumblr for getting me started with this prompt: Regina is feeling lonely and sad on the voyage to Neverland so she uses her magic on a mirror to look at scenes from when Henry was a baby and they were happy. Emma is watching silently in the background. What happens next?_

* * *

Dusk is approaching as Emma takes an after-dinner walk around the deck of the Jolly Roger. Today there were two suns in the sky and their setting rays stretch orange-red across the still waters. Emma approaches the side of the ship and stretches cautiously over the rail, hoping to catch a bit of an evening breeze off the water. The past two days have been oppressively hot and muggy, and Emma has stripped down to a tank top and a pair of tight but thin breeches that Hook had pulled from the hold.

It is unusually quiet on the deck. The frustration and mental tedium of seemingly going nowhere fast, combined with the sudden onslaught of heat—they had been battered with icy gales and stinging rain for several days before—seemed to have depleted the last of already flagging energy reserves and the rest of the ship's inhabitants had retreated to their respective cabins soon after the meal.

So Emma is startled to come across Regina in the rapidly falling dark as she rounds a stack of crates near the stern. She nearly trips over a pile of rope but catches herself, slinking back behind the crates. If Emma's being honest with herself, she's been avoiding the former Evil Queen—well, as much as one can on a modestly-sized pirate ship.

Sometimes Emma gets the feeling that Regina is trying to avoid her too, but then sometimes she can feel the woman's gaze on her as concretely as if it were fingertips dancing down her spine or a puff of warm breath against her neck. It's unsettling.

Emma never knows what to do in those moments when she catches Regina's eye and sees an odd softness in the deep brown orbs; she thinks it's something between longing and regret, but who can tell? The hardness, the mistrust, the anger, and the hurt that used to typify the looks between them have been replaced with something that Emma can't quite process and it has thrown her off-kilter. They haven't yet spoken about the whole "saving-the-town-together-with-extraordinarily-pow erful-magic" incident in the mine, but sometimes it's all Emma can think about. And when she sees Regina watching her, she's pretty sure it's all the other woman can think about too.

Emma isn't sure why she peeks through the slats in the crates rather than backing away and retreating below deck. Maybe it's because Regina looks uncharacteristically small, seated on a wooden box with her back to Emma and the outline of her spine visible where the fabric of her plain tunic sticks to her skin. There has always been something larger than life about Regina; seeing her looking so…ordinary is startling.

Regina is hunched over slightly, and from her vantage point Emma thinks she can make out something reflective in Regina's hand. When Regina shifts, Emma sees that she's holding a cracked hand mirror. Emma stifles a gasp at a flash of grey-green eyes and small, chubby cheeks that are decidedly _not _Regina's reflection.

It's hardly a glimpse at all, but Emma feels a warm, painful tugging in her chest and—_Henry_. She takes a half step forward, the toe of her boot colliding with a crate. She winces and holds her breath.

Regina straightens and half turns. A beat passes, then: "I know you're there, Ms. Swan."

Emma exhales and steps sheepishly around the crates. She doesn't approach, just waits as Regina swivels fully around and regards her with a look that is surprisingly void of irritation. Emma looks away as Regina begins to search her face in the growing starlight. She keeps her own eyes trained on the shimmering reflections of three moons in the dark ocean and tries not to fidget under Regina's scrutiny. Finally Regina sighs and looks down at the mirror.

Emma clears her throat. "Just now," she starts, "ummm…was that—how were you…?"

Regina doesn't look up, just runs a thumb across the surface of the mirror. "Memories," she says, tilting the mirror so that Emma can watch as it clouds over.

Emma lifts an eyebrow. "Like a pensieve?" she asks lightly, trying to dispel some of her own discomfort at what is becoming a too-intimate moment for her liking.

Regina looks up blankly. "A what?"

Emma shakes her head. "Never mind." She watches as the mirror clears to reveal those grey-green eyes and chubby cheeks. Her throat constricts and she steps closer. She's never seen Henry like this; the only memory she has of him as a baby are of a seconds-old wailing bundle of scrunched but perfect pinkish skin. This Henry is smiling toothlessly up at her, waving his arms, opening and closing his little hands.

Emma blinks rapidly and clenches her fists at her sides, resisting the urge to reach out and touch the mirror. She watches as a hand comes down to stroke the wispy hair on Henry's head, and she can almost feel the warmth of soft, soft skin beneath her own fingers.

"May I?" she asks, gesturing to the box next to Regina's. The woman nods and Emma sits, letting out a shaky breath. Baby Henry presses his cheek into memory-Regina's palm, his fingers finding purchase against her forearm. The mirror clouds over briefly again and then Henry is a little older, standing on wobbly legs at the edge of a rug Emma remembers hazily from the living room of the mayor's residence. He has one arm wrapped around the leg of a side table and the other one stretched out in front of him for balance. He keeps glancing between the rug in front of him and straight up through the mirror.

Emma can see a little apprehension in his young face, but there is such unconditional trust in his eyes as he takes a step, listing precariously to one side before lurching forward and half walking, half falling into waiting arms. Henry is laughing, then his face is close in the mirror, one eye and half a nose filling the frame and Emma briefly imagines that she is the one peppering his cheeks with proud kisses.

Glancing at Regina, who has a watery look in her eyes, Emma is struck with the realization that Regina is _sharing_ these memories with her. For so long Regina had fought to do anything _but_ share with Emma, and Emma is not sure what to make of this. It's another sign that everything between them is shifting. Emma feels a little bit like the ground is falling away from her feet and also a little bit like a long-persistent pressure is finally lifting from her chest.

_Thank you_, she wants to say, as she greedily takes in toddler Henry kicking at a too-large soccer ball. She can't quite form the words though, as sentiments like that have never really been a part of their relationship except when uttered as snide platitudes. But Emma hasn't felt like the woman who drove into Storybrooke with a son she barely knew for a while now, and Regina isn't the same Regina who seemed to take delicious pleasure in antagonizing Emma during her early days in town. Or maybe she is the same Regina, and it's Emma who's seeing her differently. In any case, their old ways of relating to each other no longer feel appropriate.

Regina turns her face toward Emma. Huddled together in the sticky darkness, with Emma's bare shoulder brushing against the cool fabric of Regina's tunic, they seem too close and Emma shifts slightly away. Regina's eyes have gone oddly soft again and Emma just _can't_. She looks over Regina's shoulder at the outline of the mainsail and swallows thickly. "He looked happy," she says.

"He was…" Regina says, softly. "At least, I think he was happy. We were happy, for a time."

Emma nods, trying to ignore the sting in her chest as she thinks back to the frustrated, lonely boy she met half a year ago. She takes a little comfort in knowing that his childhood had had its joyous moments. It occurs to her that she's never thanked Regina for raising Henry, but then she's also never trusted herself to say it in a way that would come of sincere to either of them. Henry's a great kid, despite being raised by someone most everyone else still regarded as the Evil Queen.

But Emma still can't wrap her head around how messed up this all is; she still can't reconcile Henry's-mother-Regina with serial-killer-Evil-Queen-Regina. Most of the time she's so horrified that Henry has been raised by a murderer that she can't even really stand to think about it. Most of the time she has to think of Regina as just _Regina, mayor of Storybrooke_ to keep from losing her shit. But then, even mayor Regina had been capable of killing Graham, and Emma's not sure she'll ever be able to forgive that.

Regina both was and wasn't what she'd imagined for Henry. He'd been provided for—even spoiled—but he'd also been deceived, made to feel like he was crazy, and he would likely carry the hurt of that betrayal for the rest of his life. If he has much more of a life—_if he's even still alive_, Emma thinks darkly. They'd all let Henry down, in the end.

"Emma, you know I'm sorry about what I did to Henry," Regina says. Emma refocuses her gaze on Regina's face, which takes on a faint lavender hue in the oddly purplish moonlight. She speaks slowly, as if every word is being drawn from her by painful force. "I tried my best, but I didn't always know how to love him very well."

Emma's cheeks warm, something twisting uncomfortably inside her and _oh god,_ she's actually feeling embarrassed for Regina, knowing how much admitting this to Emma must feel like supplication to the proud woman.

"But you have to know that he's my whole world, and everything—_everything_, I've done since the curse broke has been for him."

Emma doesn't know what to say. That it's pretty messed up that Regina would think joining forces with her mother or contemplating setting off a trigger to destroy Storybrooke could be in Henry's best interest? That if Regina hadn't dredged up that diamond in the first place—Emma clamps down on that line of thought and breathes in deeply through her nose.

They could spend days trying to assign blame, but that won't bring them closer to finding Henry. And Emma knows that what she understands of Regina barely scrapes the surface of who the woman is; the truth about Regina has always been more complicated than her parents their fairytale character compatriots have often made it out to seem.

So she just looks Regina in the eye and offers her the only thing she can at the moment. "We'll find him, Regina," she says firmly, startling herself with the conviction in her voice. "And when we do…" Emma trails off and breaks eye contact, looking down at Regina's hands clutched around the mirror. "We'll start over."

She meets Regina's eyes again, sees the surprise on the other woman's face, the flash of relief before Regina pulls on a neutral mask, as if she dares not hope too much. "I don't think we can wipe the slate clean," Emma continues. "Not after everything. But I'd like to do it right this time. With Henry, I mean. He—he wants you in his life, and you're his mother. He needs you."

Emma pauses, wets her lips. "And I kind of need him, now, too. So even if things can't be…completely okay between us, I don't want us to be incapable of getting along." She looks away again and rubs at the back of her neck, smearing the droplets of sweat that have collected there.

"We're not incapable, Emma."

This time when Emma looks at Regina, she sees pulsating bluish-purple light, feels the warmth of magic pooling in her belly and lancing out her fingertips, smells the musty dankness of the mine, hears a throaty laugh of relief, and yeah—_not incapable at all._


End file.
